Baby Room - Project #2 and 3

Project 2: Painting

We'll we weren't planning on painting, but after getting the map onto the wall and looking at the colors we were working with, I decided I really didn't like the taupe color.  I've never been a huge fan of that color, and I told Jason that we really on had one full wall to paint.  He let me do it.  Here's a few before.  Don't mind the mess.

And here is after!  I went with a fairly light gray.  I've been wanting to paint something gray and since the curtains were already gray, I thought that it made the most sense.  Everything else in the room is going to be pretty colorful so gray will be a nice background.  And I happen to love the shade.  I know that gray can be one of those tricky colors, but this one ended up being exactly what I wanted.

Project 3: Curtains

I used the tutorial from pinterest to make roman shades from mini-blinds.  It was pretty straight-froward, but took me a while just to hem and get everything laid out.  The photos don't do them justice.  This is a south facing room, so my intention was to block the sun a little better for Baby Boy!  Amos has never been sensitive to light, but who knows what Baby Boy is going to be like. 

Light still makes it in, but not too bad.

Now all that's left is the final touches!  I want to put up a shelf for decorations and maybe something above the dresser.  Also, we were given a crib, so that will make its way into the room too!

Who's a big Boy?

This guy!  He's in his big boy car seat AND he is facing forward.  After a few stressful car ride thanks to the Amos man being un-happy in his car seat, we decided to turn him around and see how he faired! He loved it.  He was "ohhing" and "ahhing" right at first.  It's neat how he can do such a good job expressing his feelings these days.  Sometimes too good of a job!  I enjoyed it more too!  Its fun to get to talk to him and a lot easier to pass back toys, milk, graham crackers, etc!

The rest of the day was quite exciting too!  We were able to hang out with my cousin and family down at her in-laws home by Shoal Creek.  Amos had a blast swimming in the creek with Daddy and just as much fun sitting in the shallow part playing with all the rocks.  Jason went up in a two person airplane with Steve and even took the wheel for a bit.  It was a fun afternoon and we had one tired boy yesterday evening!

Pumpin' Some Iron

Couldn't help but post these!  Jason was lifting weights and Amos decided to join him.  He's such a little imitator these days.  He was making all kinds of faces and had grunts to go along with them.

 I love Amos' face in this one!

Here's a short clip of some of his moves!

Family Photo Shoot

A while back, the wonderfully talented Areke Worku casually volunteered to take pictures of Amos for us sometime if we wanted.  And we finally took her up on her offer.  I'm so glad she did.  We took photos one morning last week and even started at 8 am, we were all dripping with sweat.  And let's just say, Amos wasn't Mr. Smiley.  He wasn't in a bad mood either, but we weren't sure if she could have got any good ones!  Oh, but did she.  Check out for yourself!

I know, too many good ones that I can't choose!  Thanks again Areke.  If you are needing photos done, you should check her out!  Here's a link to her blog http://www.arekeworkuphotography.blogspot.com/

Every Babies Got 'Em...

Weird quirks.  With only one kid, its hard to know which quirks are unique to him, and which are just a baby thing!  However, Amos has so many, that I thought it would be fun to share a few.  Here's some of my favorites.

Anytime I get him up from a nap, he's excited to see me, but immediately turns serious as he has to decide which object to bring with him when exiting his crib.

Immediately following this, he drops said object and begins pointing at anything and everything he sees.  It wouldn't be so weird, except that it happens... every...time!

Another quirk, which I'm sure is fairly common, is his "mad dash" (aka speed walk) to any open door he sees.  The funniest part is that any "mad dash" is accompanied by what I have termed "take off arms."  Both arms simultaneously fly backwards and he is off.

He bounces anytime he hears music, or is asked to by us.  However, his bouncing is very slow and deliberate.  It looks more like a squat.  No wonder he has legs of steel.

Lately when he's been pretty tired, he prostrates himself completely on the floor and pretends to be sleeping.  This is a pretty good sign that its time for a nap.

He's become quite the pretend coffee drinker.  Whenever Daddy has his coffee cup out, Amos comes up and takes pretend slurps.  This is always followed by a hearty smacking of the lips and a "yum yum!"

His new favorite game is "I'll Throw it on the Ground."  He entertained himself for almost 15 minutes the other day solely by throwing down and then picking up two coasters again and again.  Everything is thrown on the ground.  This is something we are working on.

In just 3 short months, another Vance boy will occupy our house.  It will be fun to found out how our boys will be the same and how they will be completely different.  This morning, we were just talking about how crazy it would be if the next boy actually liked giving hugs and kisses!  Amos might not know what think about him.

Globophobia aka Balloon Phobia

First Haircut

BEFORE

DURING

Liz did such a great job!  And this guy did a pretty good job too.

AFTER

What a handsome little boy.  All ready for pictures tomorrow.

I think it may be curlier now!

Dollar Bin Find = Hours of Fun

Amos loves my sunglasses so much that I couldn't pass up getting him a pair of his own at Target tonight!  So far, he loves them.

He's our little rock star!  He's got his mic and everything.

Also, baby brother keeps getting bigger. Only 15 weeks to go!

Baby Room - Project #1

I'm going to be honest with you.  I've been dreading this project for a little while.  Majority of the reviews online said that the finished project is great, but getting there is quite the head ache.  This is by far our largest project for the baby's room.  Room decorations are going to be a lot more low key that Amos' room.  I know, the second child always gets jipped!  However, that doesn't mean that it's not going to be a cool room!

I'm not going to give a step-by-step how to do this because the company actually does a pretty good job laying it all out.  There's even a video online, which we watched.

Yesterday, we did prep work - painted the one wall with a KILZ primer so that the mural would attach well to the wall.

This morning, we laid Amos down for his first nap and got started first thing this morning.  Based on the reviews, we knew it could take anywhere from 2 to 5 hours!  We were hoping more for 2.  And sure enough, after 2 hours, we had hung 4 of the 8 panels.  However, a lot more went into getting the paste, panels and wall ready, so we were feeling good.

Jason in action!

We decided to try Amos out it the pack-n-play ball pit!  He had fun playing & watching us work!

I told him that I wasn't getting enough "Ohhing" and Ahhing" for him!  He didn't care.

Thirty minutes later, everything was hung.  We broke for lunch, played and then put Amos down for his afternoon nap.  This allowed up to finish up the last details of gluing down all the edges.  They wanted to curl up.

After we finished, Jason and I stepped back and "Ohhed" and "Ahhed" at our work!  Can't wait to finish all the rest of the projects.  My goal is by the end of summer.  We'll see if that happens!